The Red Panels Gallery

This chamber is richly decorated with red drawings. It is also characterized by the large amount of calcite concretions enhanced with yellow and red shades covering the floors and walls. A first large monumental fresco can be seen on the right wall.

At its foot are scattered cave bear bones, displaced by the passage of bears or by the flow of water. The wall contains many red animals associated with graphic symbols and positive handprints.

The most abundant animal representation on this wall is the woolly rhinoceros. The most beautiful example is over three feet long with a nasal horn deliberately exaggerated.

Big cats are also drawn in the cave.

Human beings indicated their presence amidst this fauna by marking the wall with handprints.

A “W” symbol is also visible on the upper edge of the wall.

The walls are heavily covered with thick calcite, delicately and slowly deposited by the runoff of water laden with dissolved calcium carbonate.

Under this layer of calcite, deposited more than 10,000 years ago, are red symbols, some of which are still fully visible.

At the foot of the large rhinoceros frieze, people gathered blocks and arranged them in a pile.

The biggest block weighs about 143 pounds. This implies an activity that involved at least two people. What does this accumulation mean or embody? Is it symbolic?